


pretty rose coffin

by velavelavela



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: (in one section), Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Experimental Style, F/F, POV First Person, Spoilers, Surreal, i finished utena like not even a week ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27053686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velavelavela/pseuds/velavelavela
Summary: Once upon a time there was a pretty rose coffin and in that pretty rose coffin was a pretty rose bride.
Relationships: Himemiya Anthy/Tenjou Utena
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	pretty rose coffin

_ Have you heard? Have you heard? _

Once upon a time there was a pretty rose coffin and in that pretty rose coffin was a pretty rose bride. It was her little home; she cried; the flowers listened and wept fat, dewey tears.

Shadow puppets on the wall, projected onto the burning castle:

_ Have you heard? _

She became small in the palm of her own hand, the pretty bride. She lay her pretty head on her arm, calm and thorough as she counted the seconds that ticked by with the swords sheathed in her from all angles. The heart of the rose, furled up and soft like sarsenet.

(it’s difficult to turn your spine into a flower--)

Once upon a time there was a coffin behind a gate the size of god!  _ Have you heard? Have you heard that? _

_ I’ve heard that, I’ve been there. _

_ No you haven’t! _

The pretty rose bride held so much hurt. Her skin ached with it. The way that swords reversed themselves out of her insides, the way that each blade pierced into her wrists and ankles and felt like hot stones--

_ No you haven’t! Don’t lie! _

What is reality but a pretty rose coffin with a pretty rose girl inside, wasting away until revolution would crack the world on the lip of a tin sink?

__________________________________________

When I died for you I felt my wrists turn into petals, and the crest ring slipped from my finger and to the stone and shattered like a wine glass. The clapping of someone’s hands over my ears sounded like thunder. The piano and strings swelled like bubbles of pink blood from my slender, deep wound. Could I ever hear again? When I saw the truth of everything, when I looked into the eye of the storm angled towards me, it asked me to duel at sunset. So I put on my shoes. Ascending and descending at once, alive and dead at once, the halfway point between here and there, the end of the world kissing my shins. I walked. When I had dreamed about you it had felt wrong. I walked. Wrong, the apricot sunset and then wine colored starscape. I knew you were beside me but I didn’t know what that meant. Cantarella. The hands over my ears pressed down until the ringing ended the fight before it began. Then I was back beside you, but you weren’t there. I was begging you to take my hand in your stone box. I heard the shriek of metal circling like vultures before becoming an arrow-- Did? he? hurt? you?


End file.
